Russia Pre-emptively Repelled Aggression With Ukraine Op, Says Putin in Victory Day Speech

Russia pre-emptively repelled a projected attack by launching its special operation to demilitarise and de-Nazify Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his Victory Day speech. The decision to launch the operation on 24 February had been his only option under the circumstances, said Putin.

“We saw how the military infrastructure was unfolding, how hundreds of foreign advisers had begun to work there, with the most modern weapons being regularly delivered from NATO countries. The danger was growing every day. Russia offered a pre-emptive rebuff to the aggression - this was a forced, timely move and the only correct decision, one taken by a strong and independent country," Putin said, speaking at the Victory Parade in Moscow.

The Russian President said that NATO countries had refused to listen to the Russian Federation, as they had been preparing an attack on Crimea.

“Preparations had been underway for another punitive operation in the Donbass, an invasion of our historical lands, including Crimea," said Putin on Red Square.

According to Vladimir Putin, NATO had started actively developing the military of territories adjacent to the Russian Federation, thus creating an unacceptable threat to this country directly at its borders.

“Everything indicated that a clash with neo-Nazis, Bandera-followers - in whom the United States and its allies had invested - was inevitable," emphasised Putin.

Furthermore, Putin underscored that Kiev had also announced that it could be in the market for buying nuclear weapons.

Russia's Special Operation in Ukraine

Zelensky 'Grateful' to Azov Neo-Nazis, Claims Ukraine Hardly Has Any Radicals

2 May 2022, 05:10 GMT

The Russian President declared that it was an honourable duty to preserve the memory of those who crushed Nazism during the Second World War.

“We are proud of the unconquered, valiant generation of victors, the fact that we are their heirs, and it is our duty to keep alive the memory of those who vanquished Nazism, who bequeathed to us the need to be vigilant and do everything so that the horror of a global war never recurs,” the president said.

The West, according to Putin, has been denigrating the remarkable courage of those whose sacrifices in the Great Patriotic war had delivered victory, while praising the traitors.

Speaking at the Victory Parade in Moscow's Red Square, the head of state noted that Russia would never abandon respect for all peoples and cultures and traditional values, which the West has decided to cancel.

"Such moral degradation formed the basis for cynical falsifications of the history of the Second World War, the incitement of Russophobia, praising traitors, and mocking the memory of the victims," Putin said.

Russia's president said that taking part in the parade in Red Square were soldiers and officers from many regions of the country, including those who had arrived directly from the combat zone in the Donbass.

Servicemen of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR) have been fighting alongside the Russian military in the special military operation in Ukraine, aimed at ending the "genocide" of the Donbass people.

Russia

Putin Authorises Special Military Operation in Donbass, Vows Immediate Response to External Threats

24 February 2022, 02:54 GMT

Vladimir Putin, in an address to citizens of the Russian Federation on 24 February, had recalled how in 1940 and early 1941 the Soviet Union went to great lengths to prevent war or at least delay its outbreak.

The USSR had sought not to provoke the potential aggressor until the very end by refraining or postponing the most urgent and obvious preparations it had to make to defend itself from an imminent attack, said Putin. However, when it finally acted, it was too late, and the country was not prepared to counter the invasion by Nazi Germany on 22 June 1941, carried out without declaring war.

“The country stopped the enemy and went on to defeat it, but this came at a tremendous cost. The attempt to appease the aggressor ahead of the Great Patriotic War proved to be a mistake which came at a high cost for our people. In the first months after hostilities broke out, we lost vast territories of strategic importance, as well as millions of lives. We will not make this mistake the second time. We have no right to do so,” Vladimir Putin enphasised on 24 February.

Putin spoke about the “fundamental threats which irresponsible western politicians consistently, rudely and unceremoniously created for Russia from year to year”, referring to the eastward expansion of NATO, which has been moving its military infrastructure ever closer to the Russian border.

He reiterated that throughout the past 30 years his country had been trying to reach an agreement with the leading NATO countries regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe.

"Despite all that, in December 2021, we made yet another attempt to reach agreement with the United States and its allies on the principles of European security and NATO’s non-expansion. Our efforts were in vain. The United States has not changed its position. It does not believe it necessary to agree with Russia on a matter that is critical for us. The United States is pursuing its own objectives, while neglecting our interests," stated Vladimir Putin on 24 February.